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Writing from a country shattered by two World Wars and by Nazi barbarism, Friedrich Meinecke, Germany's foremost historian of this century, was deeply troubled by the problem of reconciling power and justice in international affairs. This study of his political philosophy traces his thinking about nationalism and power politics, the dilemmas that beset the man of action in political life, and the possibility of "ethics in a world of power." Historians, political scientists, philosophers, and students of international affairs will welcome this further contribution to a theme highlighted by such contemporary spokesmen as George Kennan m1d Reinhold Niebuhr. The author studied under Meinecke and used primary sources in Germany. Originally published in 1958. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905

These comments were not inspired by the articles in recent issues of worldview, but they have, I think, a decided revelance. A Smith student told me recently of a Vietnam teach-in held cooperatively by Smith, Holyoke, Amherst and the University of Massachusetts. She discussed some of the speakers at this teach-in—among them a physicist, a professor of English, and a political scientist. The only trouble was, she said, the physics and English professors kept raising moral issues, and all we heard from the political professor in reply was power politics.I think this remark highlights a very serious issue today in American discussions about Vietnam. If one side is talking only moral issues and the other talking only power politics, there is no true dialogue. People only end up shouting at each other.

The publication of an English translation of Friedrich Meinecke's Die Idee der Staatsraeson has stimulated a renewal of interest in the political ideas of Germany's most eminent twentieth-century historian. Particularly in the United States, newly emerged from isolation and suddenly finding itself at the centre of world power and world conflict, thinking people have been seeking a more satisfying approach to the intellectual and moral dilemmas posed by the possession of great power and great responsibility. The old confidence in an inevitable progress and in an uncomplicated harmony between reason, power, and morality has vanished with the elimination of the geographic and strategic barriers which once insulated America from the harsher realities of world politics.In such a situation, the reflections of a scholar who probed more deeply than any of his contemporaries into the ethical problems of foreign policy are peculiarly appropriate. Meinecke's sense of the tragic conflict between political necessity and moral principle can now find an understanding response in a country which has borne the terrible responsibility of making the crucial decisions in the long series of crises since 1945–Hiroshima, Berlin, Korea, Hungary, Suez, and again Berlin. Each of these crises has harboured complex ethical as well as expediential challenges. All have demonstrated the ambiguity of both moral and political standards of conduct. It was precisely this ambiguity of standards to which Meinecke addressed his thought. His reflections have, if anything, more significance today than when they first found expression.